Blogging Against Disablism "Never forget where you came from"

I grew up in a world where disability was hidden. There were no accessible buildings, buses, or tube stations. Disabled people didn't feature in television programmes. They weren't comedians or actors.  Insults like "mong" and "spaz" were acceptable. I never knew any disabled people till I was into my teens and I did a bit of voluntary work with children. But outside the special clubs or holiday programmes, I never saw the kids I helped in day to day life. It was as if they were invisible or lived in a parallel universe.

When I was 18, I went to live in a L'Arche community and my life changed completely. In 1984, L'Arche, though 20 years old, was still a revolutionary concept. The majority of people with learning disabilities still lived in decaying, Victorian hospitals isolated from their families and the places they had been born into.  L'Arche started in France and soon spread round the world, to provide places for people to live in their own communities, supported by live-in assistants. It was in L'Arche that I first appreciated, disability is an impairment, with the right support, any disabled person can find their place in the world. And it was in L'Arche that I discovered the brutal horror that many people with learning disabilities experienced in long stay hospital.

Two of my friends John and Doris, had previously lived in a hospital in Caterham called St Lawrence's for over 30 years. Both had been sent there aged around 10, by professionals who advised their families it was for the best. Both John and Doris told me many many times, that such a life was not the best for them. John's disabilities were mainly associated with being able to understand his emotions and manage social interactions, yet he was highly intelligent. In the hospital, no-one believed in him, like all the patients he was considered "stupid". He hated the place. He really loved our home, being able to have his own room, to walk to the sheltered workshop, buy his own clothes, sit on the wall and chat to the neighbours.  But though he was able to escape the walls of St Lawrence's he never quite escaped the damage of institutionalisation. He was a gifted, sensitive man, yet he struggled to accept that he was capable of any achievement. He often created beautiful art, or rugs in the sheltered workshop,  but if you praised him his emotions would sometimes spill over, and he would lash out in anger at himself or others. Though he stayed in the community for over a decade, in the end he became unable to tolerate living in an environment that offered so much freedom. He found it harder to control his behaviour and the community found themselves unable to support him. John ended his days in a residential care home, whose more regimented environment provided the familiarity of the institution, though thankfully not the cruelty of St Lawrence's.

Doris, too was immensely damaged by St Lawrence's. I hated that place, she would always say, telling me stories of staff that never used her name, of never being allowed to keep any possessions, have her own money, and the greatest trauma of all, losing contact with her parents, and not being told when they had died.  She too, experienced bouts of anger (I was often on the receiving end), but unlike John, as she grew older, she was able to reconcile with her past. She proudly gathered a room full of possessions around her, made friends with the neighbours on the street, came to terms with the death of her parents, became a vital member of her local church and the grand dame of the community.  She was an avid lover of the Royal Family, and when she died, her coffin was piped down the High St to the same music as the Queen Mother. In death, she became the matriarch she should have been if she'd lived in another time.

L'Arche changed John and Doris, and it changed me too. After I left, I went to University, intending to be a Biologist, but after three years, I knew that wasn't the life for me. I began to apply for jobs in social care, and within months of leaving was back supporting people with learning disabilities. I've not looked back since.

I'm telling these stories today because today is Blogging Against Disablism Day.  A lot has changed in the last thirty years, and the majority of it has been good. Today people with disabilities are visible, buses and buildings are accessible. There are disabled actors, and comedians, disabled people appear in TV programmes. The world is a richer place because of it.

I'm  proud to have been part of the revolution that tore down the hideous institutions of the past and freed people with learning disabilities. I've been proud to stand beside disabled friends at rallies, to support campaigns for better access, opportunities for employment, independence. I've been proud to work with self-advocacy and campaigning organisations, and to help make self-directed support a reality. For most of the last thirty years, the journey has been hopeful, exciting, a chance to break down barriers. The last thirty years have been about progress, improvement, greater opportunity.

And yet, this year, I fear for my friends with disabilities like I never have done before. I fear about the impact of cuts and welfare reform that will curtail people's freedoms and independence. I fear about the effect of a relentlessly negative media which is resulting in an increase in hate crime. I fear about the minority of bigoted politicians who don't mind anyone knowing they think disabled people are  worthless. 

This year, it feels like this country is on the brink of turning back the clock thirty years: trapping disabled people into lives of poverty and grinding dependence at the top of a slippery slope which ends in  institutionalisation at best, and at worst a world that accepts eugenics is a reasonable social policy. It feels like we are on the brink of a nightmare, and it frightens the hell out of me. And yet, I don't believe the majority of people in Britain are like that. I believe we are better than that, as individuals, and as a nation. Today, we mustn't forget where we've come from, and the future we are still trying to achieve. Because, no matter how much progress we've made, there's still plenty more to be done. We mustn't let austerity stop us.

Which is why I'd like to urge everyone who reads my blog to stand up on the side of disabled people and get involved in some of the campaigns I support:

Please sign the Wow Petition and use twitter to spread the word.

Follow these brilliant bloggers to educate yourself about what is happening. Sue Marsh, Kaliya Franklin, Steve Sumpter,Centre for Welfare Reform

Contact your MPs and councillors to let them know you won't stand for it.

Write to your local press pointing out what is happening.

Stand up to every snide comment, wrong assertion and outright lie you hear about disabled people.

And never, ever, forget where we came from. We can't go back there. We just can't

After the Rapture

I don't often write sequels - but after I wrote this Friday Flash I have wondered from time to time what happened to the characters. I'm currently working on a collection of flash fiction and this story just appeared...

After the Rapture

The sun is beginning to set behind them. Orange beams radiate from the top of the copse streaking a  fiery path across the blue-grey ocean. Sylvie's back aches. Her knees ache. Her head aches.  When she comes to think about it, everything aches, and has been aching all day. This is not the rapture he has promised her. They have been waiting for two hours for nothing to happen.

            Jim, is as silent as he was this morning; this time he has not been able to find the words to help her keep the faith. This time she is beginning to doubt. She looks at him in side profile: long nose, blue eyes, fair hair, a face she has loved for over a year. Tonight for the first time the treacherous thought creeps in, why, exactly? What is it about him that has made her abandon her life, her mother, her friends? His smile? The attention he pays her? His passionate conviction that God has been speaking to him, and him alone? Perhaps it is all three, but now his certainties have been vanquished, he suddenly seems as full of human frailties as everyone else. Sylvie aches.  She has had enough. She wants to go home.

            She is about to stand up, and tell him enough is enough, when he leaps to his feet. "Do you hear it?" he says, his eyes shining. "Hear what?" All she can hear is the sound of the wind, the crash of the waves on the rocks below, the screeching of gulls in the air above them. "Listen," he pulls her to her feet, "Close your eyes, and really listen."

            "To what?"

            "The angels singing." 

            Sylvie is torn between non-belief and belief. After all this time, she hates the idea of finding him wanting, fallible, human. But the truth is,  "I can't hear anything."

            "Sssh," he says stroking her hair, bringing her close to him. She can hear his heart beating, he is breathing deep calm breaths. "Listen," he says again, "Have faith. Listen."

            Sylvie wants to have faith. She wants to believe. She closes her eyes, resting her head on his chest, letting it rise and fall with every breath he takes. And then, she hears it. Above the noise of the gulls, the crashing waves, the sighing wind, she hears it: the song of angels, pure, high, so beautiful she could cry with joy. She opens her eyes and sees tears in his. "I hear them."

            " They are calling to us. A final test."

            "What?"

            "We are the only ones left. Can you hear the thunder?" She nods, hearing the rumble in the distance behind them. "It's a sign. Everyone else is gone, the plagues and pestilence will be starting. Listen to the angels. We have to take this leap of faith." He walks to the edge of the cliff, extending his arm to her.

            "You mean jump?"

            "The angels will carry us up to heaven. We just have to believe."

            She looks at his radiant face, the rapture glowing in his eyes. She doubts no more. She takes his hand and steps forward.

            "I love you," she says.
            "I love you too." As she steps forward, he lets his hand drop. It is too late for her to stop, and she is falling through the air. The gulls screech, the wind sighs, the waves crash. The sky above her glowers with black clouds... And the angels have disappeared. Her last sight is of Jim standing, arms outstretched on top of the cliff, as if he is blessing her flight.

            Jim watches her descent, forming the account he will provide of the incident.She had more faith than me, he will say, She took a leap of faith. Her earthly body was dashed on the rocks. But I saw her lifted up to heaven. For the rapture is not for all of us, we sinners are left behind. She had more faith than me. And she leapt.

He will tell the police a different story.

Well Then

Well Then.

It looks like this is it.  Locks changed. Bags on the doorstep. No Way Back.

Whatever happened to...

"I'll always love you no matter what." Under an oak tree in Finsbury Park, sheltering from the rain storm. Shivering despite the warmth of your body. The sincerity of your blue-eyed gaze the only surety I needed.

"No-one, but  NO-ONE has EVER understood me the way you do." August; roof top. The pinky-blue sky still shimmering from the heat of the day. Talking, talking, talking. Telling each other things we'd never told anyone else. Leading to the moment, the breakthrough, the  point of no return.

"I want to grow old with you." The day I moved in, pulling my battered black suitcase behind me. You laughed at it's antiquity, picked me up and carried me over the threshold. I felt safe, held. I knew then, you'd never let me down.

I don't know how it happened. Truly I don't. I thought we were happy. That you loved me. Clearly I missed something important, something obvious. Like one of those frogs, who don't notice the water is boiling until it's too late.

So now, I am locked out. I can see you through the window back to me, ignoring my texts. My rickety suitcase sits in front of our blue door. Or to be more precise, YOUR blue door. There is no "our" any more. You've made that abundantly clear.

Well then. If this is the situation. What is to be done?

I look at the suitcase. I look at the window. I extend the handle, pick it up, and swing.

Logging In

Username: LeggyLaura
Password: Sexonlegs

Wrong Username/Email and password combination

Of course, that's Gmail. Silly me...

Username: LeggyLaura
Password:gransbirthday90

Wrong Username/Email and password combination

What? Wait a minute is that work? I know...

Username: LeggyLaura
Password:Danishot

Wrong Username/Email and password combination

You're kidding me? Facebook? It must be...

Username:LeggyLaura
Password:foreveryoursDan

Wrong Username/Email and password combination

FFS. I am so stupid...

Username:LeggyLaura
Password:Sexonlegs2

We've gotta check. Are you human?

Oh sod you twitter - I'm going to the pub

The Next Big Thing

I feel a bit of a fraud with this…I am nowhere near being a published author, I haven’t got an agent and have yet to self publish anything. (Though I do have a few short story credits to my name - see sidebar) However, my dear lovely twin sister Julia Williams who IS a best selling author (25th on the best seller list this week!) kindly tagged me in this game of The Next Big Thing. And since the questions she has given me are simply irresistible, I’m delighted to be joining in.

What is the title of your book?

Echo Hall.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

I was living in a remote hamlet in Northamptonshire a few years ago. Our home was a converted schoolhouse next to the parish church and graveyard. We were several hundred feet from our nearest neighbour and a quarter of a mile from the rest of the village. I’m a townie by birth and by nature, and (unsurprisingly for a writer) I’m blessed with an over-active imagination. I used to wake up in the pitch black night and imagine I heard voices, much to my husband’s amusement.* It used to scare the beejeesus out of me. In fact, I was such a scaredy cat, if Chris was away, I used to bring my then one year old son into bed to protect me. And one day I thought, what if you came to a remote country house, woke up in the middle of the night and such voices were real? What would they say and why? And that’s how it began.

*Though to be fair we once did wake up at 3am and there really were voices. It was the local police who'd been called out because the sheep from a neighbouring farm had escaped down the road and were holed up in our car park. Country life eh?


What genre does your book fall under?

I’m not a huge fan of pigeon holing writing, mine or anyone else’s. However, I’d say this book is unashamedly gothic, with a political twist. So I’d like to think I’ve invented a new genre – political gothic.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Ooh good good question. Hmm. I have three generations of a family (so I suppose it’s a bit of a family saga as well, see how much I don’t like pigeon-holing?) Let me think now.

Ruth, who is the 1990’s heroine is very calm and restrained. I think Carey Mulligan would be good. Her husband, Adam, is a little bit unreliable, Tom Felton, perhaps? Elsie in 1940’s is passionate and lively, and auburn, so definitely Karen Gilligan . Her husband Jack, as a young man could be Harry Lloyd. Jack is 76 in the 1990’s so the older version would have to be um Michael Gambon?  Jack’s cousin Daniel could be Daniel Radcliffe, though he’d wear a curly wig. I think Bonnie Wright would make a good Rachel in the previous generation, with maybe Benedict Cumberbatch as her husband Joseph (he too would need curly hair). Her sister Leah would be Emma Watson maybe, and Leah’s husband Jacob would be Skandar Keynes. And maybe their older versions would be Kate Winslet and David Morrisey?

Will your book be self-pubished or represented by an agency?

The aim is to get an agent and go the traditional route. However, if that fails I’ll definitely self-publish,

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Erm…dare I say 7.5 years? In my defence, for three of those years I was looking after pre-school kids. For the next 4.5 I was back at work with children aged 3-7. The kids are a lot older now, so the second draft has only taken just over a year. I’m optimistic I might finish a third draft in less time!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I don’t dare do that. I would say I’ve definitely given a nod to Rebecca and Wuthering Heights. But I’ve been avoiding books like  The Little Stranger, or The Thirteenth Tale for fear of being influenced by them.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Well the original inspiration was imaginary ghosts, but after that I had to think about who the characters were and what they were doing in the house. And it quickly became about people living in times of war, so it is infused with the spirit of my grandmothers, my aunts and my mother who all lived during World War 1 and World War 2. My 1940's character Elsie shares a Liverpool background with my paternal grandmother, and like her, she was denied an education. It’s only a minor part of her story, but important to me none the less.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

My central theme is that unresolved conflicts spill over into the next generation and I have deliberately set family conflicts in times of war. So I hope it will appeal to anyone who is interested both in relationships and politics. I have a particular take on these issues, but  I hope that readers will be able to make their own minds up and disagree with me if they want.

I’ll be tagging the following writers for the Next Big Thing on their blogs next week....

Anne Booth, who is one of my oldest friends and who like me is unpublished. She’s a fine writer and I hope this will be rectified soon. She's written a brilliant (as yet unpublished) novel about nuns, and just completed her first young adult novel. The Hidden Hours is a great story about a young girl, her relationship with her grandma and Nazi Germany. And because she doesn’t have a blog, I’m giving her space to come here next week and tell you all about it.

Marc Nash is one of my Friday Flash compadres. He  has written and self published three novels AB,and E,

Not in My Name and Time after Time and 2 collections of Flash Fiction 52FF and 16FF. Marc is experimental, challenging, entertaining and has the widest grasp of the English language of anyone I know…Marc blogs over at Sulci Collective.

John Wiswell is another one of my fellow Friday Flash writers. He is currently working on a fantasy novel. John has the most surreal and creative imagination and his regular Bathroom Monologues are an absolute delight. He seems capable of writing in any genre and he always always makes me think.


I think I'm supposed to have four writers but one of the other people I asked had already done it, and the other wasn't ready to talk about her book. They're both great writers though so do look up Icy Sedgwick and Shelley Harris

The Jumper

The jumper is left draped over the futon with a casual familiarity. He notices it minutes after she has left. The jumper is turquoise flecked with green. It looks comfortable against the cushion, as if in this is the place it should be when not adorning her long slender back. He can't help feeling she has left it behind deliberately, as a message: get in touch.

He steps over to the sofa, picks it up, buries his face in the wool. He wrinkles his nose in anticipation of her smell, imagining  lily-of-the-valley, soft, subtle - his mother's favourite perfume. But the aroma exuding from the left-behind garment is less fragrant. Cigarette smoke and sweat. She hasn't washed it in weeks. Now he looks close up he can see red soup stains by the V-shaped neck, sugar crystals stuck to the mid-riff, and what appears to be chocolate on the hem. He hasn't expected this. For a moment he hesitates.

Then he remembers her smile as she left. He picks up his mobile and texts: You left your jumper behind. Shall I bring it to you? He sits back on the futon, hugging the jumper close to him. It is a little piece of her. Soon, he will have the rest.

***

She arrives at the bar and orders pernod and blackcurrant. Tiny Tempeh is blaring out from the music system. It is early still. Soon this place will be full of Friday night screeching, but right now she has time to nip out the back for a quick fag. She has her pick of tables, so she chooses one furthest from the door. She takes the cigarette packet from her back pocket, pulls out a slender cigarette, caresses it in her fingers. The lighter flares orange as she places the cigarette in her lips, lighting the tip. She drags in the sweet smell and breathes out a long sigh. The first fag of the evening is always the best - full of hope and desire, before a night's smoking causes her throat to rasp.

Though there are heaters in the courtyard, she has placed herself too far from them. That was stupid, it is November after all. She shivers, reaching in her bag for her jumper. It is not there. Where can she have left it?  She retraces her steps in her mind. The post office? No, she wasn't wearing it then. The tube. She definitely didn't have it then. She knew she was wearing it at lunchtime because  it was cold when she nipped out for a sandwich. She is still trying to work it out when a message blinks on her phone. You left your jumper behind. Shall I bring it to you? For a moment, she struggles to remember the number and then it comes to her. Jan's friend. The one who's DVDs she'd borrowed. She'd dropped them off earlier. She'd forgotten all about that.

She is about to text back, but the door into the patio opens. Her date for the evening. "I thought I'd find you out here." He smiles. She smiles back, shoving her phone in her bag. She'll phone wotsisname tomorrow. There's no rush.

***

It will take him three weeks of persistent texting to arrange a meeting which will last five minutes. His love will last for a few seconds more.

At the top of the scree slope

If you've been paying any attention to my blog in recent months, you'll have noticed me banging on about the second draft of my novel. And how I intended to finish by the end of the summer. Or at least by the time I went to the Festival of Writing in York.

Well I didn't manage it. Of course, I didn't. My life is just too busy for that. But going to the Festival of Writing was so inspirational that, once I returned, I was possessed by a manic energy to race to the top of my particular novel mountain. For the whole of September, and most of October, despite an absolutely crazy workload and busy family life, I've been getting up at 6, and sometimes working to 11 just to revise , add to the word count and generally beat the book in submission. For several weeks this was an absolute exhiliarating joy. The kind of joy you get, when the air is in your lungs, the sky is blue, the breeze pleasant and the sun warms you on your way. I strode the slopes with energy, verve, each day finishing with me looking forward to the next

But as I began to near the end of my goal, with only a few chapters to go, I hit a nerve wracking scree slope. For every step up, I slid three down. The sun went behind a cloud, the wind whipped up, no longer exhiliarating but cold and hard. I was bone tired, and desperate to stop, but I knew that if I did, I might never start up again. Inch, by inch, I clambered over sharp pointy stones, now forward, now back, some days stuck at the same point, paralysed by the effort. Until, at last, this time last week, I found myself inches away from the ridge. There was half a chapter left and it literally raced off my fingers and on to a screen. And for the time being I was done.

The view from here is rather satisfying. I've printed my second draft off, satisfyingly twice the size of the feeble first draft I finished last year. I've read it twice, and though there are still places where the language makes me wince, where I've lost my thread, where I've been inconsistent, it's beginning to take the shape I want it to.

I'll be off again in a minute, pushing myself through a third draft which will no doubt be as painful as the last two. But I can see the summit now, and I know, without a doubt, that I can reach it. And after eight years, I can tell you, that's quite a sight.